Heads up for my compilations, new forum, new thread. There's also a fair number of comps from other guys here, namely Libertycaps and Zischkale. I think they will be of interest to most of you! Blog address: http://aftersabbath.blogspot.com

The first few include quite predictable bands, Captain Beyond, Leaf Hound, Bang, SLB etc but as I have had to look further-afield they have become a bit more interesting!

Volume 33 of The Day After The Sabbath is a collection of German heavies. It differs from Volume 19 "Kraut Rockin" in that it's not specifically intended to include bands that are linked with the 'Krautrock' movement, just great bands! After recording Amon Duul II’s “Yeti”, Dieter Serfas and Christian Shart split to formed their own project called Sameti in Munich in 1971, we start with their catchy 'Get Up'. Second track 'Hypodermic Needle / Smile Please' is the AB sides of a great single from a band that had no album releases, which is a shame as Novak's Kapelle showed talent with their super-heavy psych. Baumstam are up next, employing great fuzz guitar. Ash Ra Temple are one of the 'Krautrock' bands here, this track is quite a straight-forward rocking jam compared to their more experimental stuff, and could quite easily be from a stoner rock band of today. Second Life was the original band that members went on from to form 'Tiger B. Smith', who have featured previously here. New Lords seem to have been a short-lived off-shoot from 60s group 'The Lords', another example of a pop band jumping on the early 70s hard rock bandwagon and coming up with something surprisingly good! Proud Flesh are another short-lived albumless band that's hard to find info on, but they certainly produced a few great cuts, heavy for their time. Finally we have P205, with one of my favourite tracks here. It's long and roughly recorded, but ultimately this gives it an other-worldly and amateurishly endearing charm. It takes you on a doom-laden journey, with emotive touches including a wonderfully forlorn guitar solo around the half-way mark, and some discreetly effective keyboard touches.

Volume 34 is collection of tracks with connection to New Zealand. Being a remote country with small population, the scene's pool of talent tends to blend with that of larger and historically-linked countries like Australia and the UK. "Jesse Harper", who bookends this volume with two excellent Hendrixian tracks, was a pseudonym of Doug Jerebine, who started out in a number of underground NZ bands like The Brew. He recorded his 1969 album 'Guitar Absolution in the Shade of a Midnight Sun' during a stint in the UK, while there he played bass with Jeff Beck and formed the World Band with another Kiwi Mike Donnelly on drums. The Brew links us to another band here, The Underdogs, whose guitarist Harvey Mann played with Doug Jerebine while in The Brew together. Ticket were one of NZ's early prog/psych bands that had success in Australia too, where they supported Black Sabbath's tour. Dave Miller is a kiwi who moved over to Australia and initially formed The Dave Miller Set, after they split three of them formed Blackfeather (who appear elsewhere on this blog). Leith Corbett soon abandoned Blackfeather to work with Miller on 1970 album ‘Reflections Of A Pioneer’ which '353527 Charles' is taken from. The La De Das formed in New Zealand in 1963 (as The Mergers), they enjoyed considerable success in both New Zealand and Australia until their split in 1975. Space Farm were formed by Harvey Mann (Ticket) and Glen Absalom from The Underdogs with bass player Billy Williams. They recorded one album in 1972 which the Hawkwind-ish 'Space Farm' is taken from. Timberjack were a shortlived band that achieved chart success and infamy with their cover of Black Widow's 'Come To The Sabbat". Guitarist Billy TK features here on 'Black Sally'. He was a guitarist with some reputation for his Hendrix-like skills. The Bluestars began life as the Nomads around 1961, they were one of NZ's earliest psych bands and I love the guitar sound and aggression of 'Social End Product'. Living Force was a later project of Eddie Hansen, previously of Ticket, and the track here 'Hari Bol' is some insistant prog. A very good article regarding the NZ scene can be found here: http://www.wordworx.co.nz/Underground%20scene.htm

Happy new year to you all! Volume 35 features artists of Dutch heritage. Karel Appel supplies us with a spooky intro, he was a Dutch abstract-expressionist painter who used a battery of percussion instruments, piano and electric organ for a soundtrack to a 1963 documentary about himself, by cinematographer Jan Vrijman. De Maskers are up next, they released a few albums and singles in the late 60s, here they play a brilliant slice of ominous psych. The Bag track is a the AB sides of a single from 1971, a piece of awesome doom that makes me wish I could hear more but they were alas album-less. Blue Planet offer up a driving and melodic track that has some catchy song writing, leading me to think they could have been quite a hit. Cargo are up next as one of the heavier entries here and Shocking Blue are one of the few bands with a female vocalist to appear in my comps, they offer some tight hard-edged pop-psych with strong vox from Mariska Veres (R.I.P.). Group 1850 started life in 1964 as the amusingly-monikered "Klits" and have an anti-war protest song, named in reaction to The Beatles' 'Let It Be'. Focus are one of the more well-known I have used so far. A re-release of "Hocus Pocus", due to a Nike 2010 world-cup commercial, led to the song entering the British Charts at #57 this year. We end up with Pugh's Place and the second reference to The Beatles, namely their excellent heavy '71 cover of "Drive My Car".

Volume 36 of TDATS features Japanese bands. A small but talented hard rock scene emerged from the country's prevailing 60s psychedelic 'Group Sounds' musical collective, much as it did around the world at the time. The bands all have a pleasingly oriental twist in their sound. Starting with 'Japan's answer to Jimi Hendrix', is Shinki Chen's Speed, Glue & Shinki. The band was started by guitarist Shinki Chen, and Ikuzo Orita, Japan's president of Polydor Records. Next up, Gedo was a mainly live band that has a few live recordings, and played sounds alternating between hard rock and vigorous proto-punk. Too Much's name came from the TOO MUCH concert that The Helpful Soul played with the newly-formed Blues Creation, in Kyoto at the end of February 1970. The hippy phrase ‘too much’ was already utterly clichéd in the West by this time, but it was iconic and easily pronounceable to the Japanese! Yonin Bayashi's debut album "Isshoku-Sokuhatsu" displayed amazing progressive musical ability, especially as they were all around 20 years of age at the time! Ginbae was originally released as a private pressing on the Sea Side Label, rare as hen's teeth, to the point that it's not known what the track names are any more. Aside from the slightly lacking sound quality, they play some excellent churning metal. Little is known about Jun Kamikubo and his single album, but he sure recorded some warm stoner rock jams, as shown here with 'Getting Into The Ecstasy'. Blues Creation and Flower Travellin' Band shouldn't need too much introduction here, along with Shinki Chen they are one of Japan's most famous 70's hard rock acts, with a doomy sound. Datatenryu play some excellent spikey noise/prog with great aggressive vocals. Nokemono and Bow Wow (later 'Vow Wow') end the collection as examples of two of the only Japanese bands that were taking metal into the NWOBHM-influenced latter half of the 70s and beyond.

TDATS Volume 37 Features Italian bands. Italy took a liking to English prog rock early in the 70s, at the time some UK bands such as Van der Graaf Generator and Gentle Giant became better-known to the Italian public than the English. Hard Rock was never as well represented as symphonic prog, which is the sound that Italy made it's own. On this comp I have searched for heavier rock as much as I can, and some classic symphonic prog has made it in. The opening Tritons track is a B-side of a strange Stones' 'Satisfaction' cover. Ibis is the heavier reincarnation of New Trolls, who formed in 1967. Both of these bands have great tracks on here. The fourth track is taken from Osanna's 2nd album, which made a great departure from their first and plays as one long concept piece, which I have taken an edit from. Le Orme were a long-running prog band that played with such bands as the aforementioned Van der Graaf Generator, their track here is a welcome half-time piece of spooky electronica which reminds me a lot of Goblin's soundtrack work, an Italian band which I included on volume 30. Il Rovescio Della Medaglia's song "La Creazione", is taken from LP "La Bibbia", which is their concept work based on the early parts of the Bible. Biglietto per Inferno's name literally means 'ticket to hell', it perfectly mixes symphonic prog interludes with hard rock verses. Osage Tribe offer up some excellent technically-played hard prog and Crystals is a band I have used once before. I really wanted to use them again as they have some great Zeppish tracks on their one-off s/t album, and they end the compilation on the lugubrious 'Sad Story'.

TDATS 38 kicks off with Stonewall, an NYC band with just one s/t album, this track is perfect for an opening track, it's got one of those huge rolling riffs that sounds instantly familiar, like it's been woven in the fabric of the universe for ever. Next up is guitar/drums two-piece Captain Foam, from Ohio. It's from a 45 that is reportedly from 1968. It has a wall of sound thing going on and if you search pictures you will see they embodied this with their wall of amps on stage. Sweet (or The Sweet) are a well-known band due to some of their pop-rock hit singles but I include them here as I have been reading their popular sound was imposed on them by record label pressure while the band themselves played heavy live and preferred it that way, as you can tell from some of the lesser-known tracks buried away in their LPs. Clear Light were a one-album west coast psych band that created a doomy atmosphere in this track from 1967. Cozy Powell will be known to most of you as part-time drummer of many huge bands like Sabbath and Rainbow. He has a small body of solo work and this "Dance With the Devil" B-side is a great little jam with a compact drum solo. I have used another contemporary cover here, this time from Italian stoner doom titans Ufomammut, doing Blue Cheer proud. In my recent research for a South American volume I came across "Miguel Abuelo & Nada" and am quite stunned at the quality and scope of vision of the Argentinean ensemble, that recorded this work in France. Larry Coryell offers up a little jazz-psych song with a great guitar workout toward the end.

TDATS 39 is a collection of music from Spain. After the Spanish Civil War, during the fifty-year dictatorship of Franco, everything pertaining to regional culture was banned. Languages, literature, and music were burned and berated. Musicians before 1975 suffered many difficulties as a result. The kind of material I generally look for was especially rare in the early 70's, just at the time when most of the world was enjoying it's peaks.

Firstly I must thank Mara at mar-abunta.blogspot.com for some excellent recommendations that have really helped this volume. It starts with Tapiman who, along with The Storm, Lone Star and Leño, were among the more professional sounding bands to draw influence from big, brash hard rock names like Zeppelin and Purple. Lone Star's track is taken from a period TV appearance so apologies for the sound but the enthusiastic performance makes up for it. Agamenon and Cerebrum offer great slabs of growling psych while Union Pacific, Tarántula, Lisker and Ñu offer driving hard prog. Ciclón and Época are both rare examples of unfortunately short-lived bands that counted Sabbath as influences and only had a few single releases. Evolution were a band established in the 60's who cottoned on to the progressions at the turn of the decade and began recording some reverential covers like this King Crimson track. Eduardo Bort offers an unusual mix of spacey folk with bouts of Hendrix-style guitar and is only now gathering respect as one of Spain's unique rock acts. The comp ends on a departure from the heaviness with Triana, renowned as the country's premiere exponent of the 'flamenco prog' sound.

TDATS 40 is a collection of music from ye olde England. It begins with a track from The Way We Live. This duo recorded one LP under this name before changing to Tractor, who some of you may know from the excellent track 'All Ends Up' on TTTDF vol 5. Ugly Custard appear to be one of those rock exploitation bands that were brought together to record a bunch of covers and standards in the popular sound of the time, their version of traditional folk song Scarboro' Fair offers a great variety of sounds and really is a little epic in itself. Slowbone were a band doing the rounds in the east end of London around the early seventies. It is alleged that young soon-to-be members of NWOBHM icons Iron Maiden were fans. You can certainly detect a hint of the trademark Iron Maiden gallop here so who knows? T2, first appearing on Vol 2, have a track taken from a bootleg that is often named 'Fantasy', touted as their 2nd album that never saw the light of day, it is probably just a collection of outtakes, but showing the band's brilliance, T2 outtakes are more than worthy! The Norman Haines band features the ex-singer/keyboardist of a late 60's band some of you may know, Locomotive, he had a cool wah'd up hammond sound. July offer us some funky drumming in their lump of heavy psych from 1968 and Ace Kefford Stand have some history. Ace Kefford was a founding member of influential psych band The Move, and this short-lived band also features the drumming talents of Cozy Powell, making another appearance after Vol 38. The intriguing story of Universe is that the little-known band were driving through Norway and after breaking down were offered assistance by a gent living near-by who happened to have a recording studio in his house. True or not their single album is a great slice of blue-collar rock and the comp ends on another contemporary stoner rock band's cover, this time California's Earthless and their excellent rendition of The Groundhogs.

I was thinking about the complications of that recently, in that I make a new one every couple of weeks, so a torrent would soon be out of date. Use the megaupload links (the best file serve site) or get them off me by Soulseek, username: r0b0c0p

DATS 41 is a collection of tracks from eastern Europe. I had some assistance from a couple of online friends for this one, so thanks to bonistik for Ruja & Юрий Морозов, and thanks to Lalena87 for Smak! It was a lot of fun finding these bands and hearing their often distinctly east-european slant on all things hard n' fuzzy. Krzysztof Klenczon was the lead guitarist in one of Poland's most famous rock bands, Czerwone Gitary (The Red Guitars), his solo track here is a work of quirky joy with super fuzz verses and a fun chorus. Phoenix's track is cool mixture of prog and hard rock while Ruja play some great Sabbathian doom. Диана Експрес (eng: Diana Express) from Bulgaria play us a cute little bit of keyboard-heavy Deep Purple worship which has no guitar but does not suffer a bit from it. Skorpió are a band that I used back on vol. 13, they are another great example of the unconventional direction a lot of the bands take on this volume. They are heavy on the organs, and make a melodic glam rock sound that's weighty and tight into the bargain. Igra Staklenih Perli enter with an eerie electronic intro which slowly morphs into driving space rock and next up, "Modrý Efekt & Radim Hladík", are a successful Czech prog band that still play today. Pop Masina, along with Юрий Морозов (eng: Yuri Morozov), are a couple more artists that show an accomplished love for Tony Iommi's mob. Smak, from Serbia, play a hard-grooving instrumental and the comp concludes in a Hungarian haze; Piramis, Locomotiv GT and Omega are more good examples of hard rock with an unusual and plainly non-western feel that makes them so refreshing.